GOWHAR FAZILI - Azadi in the Lexicon of Aam Aadmi
During the swearing in speech at the Ram Leela Maidan, the word Azadi found its place of pride on Arvind Kejriwal’s symbolic cap. Mujhe Chahiye Poori Azadi, it said. The word Azadi has travelled from the freedom struggle in Kashmir, to the movement against gendered violence in Delhi and is now entering the lexicon of the Aam Aadmi. The Aam Aadmi’s historic ascension to power through a referendum resonates well with the long-standing demand in Kashmir seeking to let the people decide their political future directly.
The Arvind Kejriwal moment in Delhi can be conceptualized as a revolutionary moment (as against movement) and thus compared with a similar moment in the 1987 Kashmir when the Muslim United Front (MUF) sought to uproot the National Conference-Congress combine from the political equation, and nearly succeeded. Though the two moments are very dissimilar in many ways, and I will lay these differences out as we proceed, I see some merit in comparing the common revolutionary spirit behind each, which may be summed up as the restoration of dignity to the people. In one case it involves its restoration from an occupying state and its local surrogates. In the other, from the capitalist-politician nexus that has rendered people inconsequential. The farce is ritually staged as a contest between two corrupt parties - one wearing a hard fascist mask and the other wearing a soft nationalist mask - the BJP and the Congress.
Kejriwal’s cap canvases for a metaphorical poori azadi, that is complete independence or freedom. Yet his campaign is built around tangible objectives that translate into concrete micro level changes that common people find palpable. People can rest their hopes on these symbolic and practical benefits until the promise of the ultimate freedom and utopia comes to fruition. The entrenched interests challenged by this virtual restoration of agency and hope to the Aam Aadmi are not likely to let it proceed unimpeded once the party begins to address substantial issues. We should not be surprised if the party is eventually co-opted, subverted or tamed in some manner and made to serve the very interests against which it has risen. Regardless, the pedagogic value of this attempt should not be lost on revolutionary movements. Such value will sustain beyond its efficacy and particular context as acknowledged even by its detractors, and that is on what we should focus our attention.
Kejriwal’s subtle and creative use of religion in his speech may be compared with its relatively crude use by the Muslim United Front (MUF) which, for example, excluded non-Muslims from the political discourse in its very name. Had it been named People’s United Front (PUF) for instance, perhaps it would have had a different ring to it. After all there are people in Kashmir who identify themselves differently (such as Pandits and Sikhs) and the MUF should have been sensitive to the existence of such people. While those entrenched in power would have opposed the MUF regardless of how it was named, it is inexcusable to exclude whole groups of people by definition. This does not mean that the MUF or its equivalent should not have taken inspiration from the revolutionary legacy of Islam and harnessed its metaphorical symbolism for the movement, which it may have actually sought to do. In fact, all such emancipatory traditions should be salvaged from fascistic appropriation. The use of such traditions should, however, be manifestly inclusionary. Majoritarianism and exclusionary politics does not sit well with democracy and revolution. They are at the very heart of fascistic perversion.
The AAP may not have cut much ice among Indian Muslims as of yet, regardless of its stated anti-communal equidistance from the BJP and the Congress. This could be because the party is not informed by the particularities of the Muslim condition in India, having essentially emerged out of the movement against nepotism and corruption and not against communalism, or for that matter, caste or gender discrimination. However when Arvind Kejriwal makes references to Allah, Ishwar, Prabhu and divinity in various other forms in the same breath, such use has serious symbolic value. His prayer, insaan ka insaan se ho bhaichara, emphasising humanism amid the hyper-communalized political discourse in India is poignant.
Following the 1987 rigging, the state at the disposal of powerful illegitimate interests brought its might against the people’s uprising in Kashmir. The rigged elections and accompanying repression radicalized people. In Delhi, the same interests, while using the instruments of state to subvert the Aam Aadmi movement, for instance by trumping up false charges against its leaders, did not go all out to crush the movement by force. Besides, the phenomenon being located at the heart of India rather than in some isolated and dispensable fringe, the proliferation of relatively independent and sympathetic media may have ensured that the AAP is not ruthlessly suppressed. It may also be harder to render the Aam Aadmi at the heart of the nation into the nations other.
One major factor that plays out differently between Kashmir and Delhi is the symbolic geo-political dimension –the manner in which the two neighbouring states are able to use Kashmir to keep their respective populations away from substantial issues. Both the states ensure that Kashmir remains a permanent site for dissipation of public frustration at the cost of the indigenous people’s resistance and struggle for freedom and dignity. When nothing else works, hang an Afzal, raise the bogey of terrorism or bring the armies to the brink of war on the LOC! The people of Jammu as well as Kashmir, and India as well as Pakistan, are hostage to this communalising strategy of the two imperial states.
The revolutionary people’s movement, especially in Jammu and Kashmir, has not as yet learnt to break free from this statist paradigm by imagining people and politics in ways that are inclusive and creative, such that it confounds the state. The day that happens, the real Azadi, where people matter regardless of their numbers or influence, will not be a distant dream.
